VISIT TO IRAN BY ITALY’S FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER POSTPONED

ROME-TEHRAN 23 Nov. (IPS) Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Frattini’s visit to Iran scheduled for Sunday has been postponed, the official Iranian news agency IRNA confirmed, quoting an identified Italian diplomatic source.

The Italian diplomat told IRNA that the postponement of Frattini’s visit was due to his tight schedule and that no new date has yet been set.

But according to Mr. Ahmad Ra’fat, a correspondent in Rome for Radio Farda (Tomorrow), the Persian service of the Prague-based Rafio Free Europe-Radio Liberty said the Italians have blamed the Iranian side for the cancellation of the visit.

"The situation of human rights and Iran’s controversial nuclear activities were to be at the centre of Mr. Frattini’s talks with Iranian officials, but the Iranians, angry at the support the European gave to a Canadian resolution at the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee in the one hand and the stance they took at the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s atomic programs, decided time was not good for the visit.

Italy is the present chair country of the 15-25 European Union.

During his two-day visit, the Italian Foreign Affairs Minister was scheduled to confer with President Mohammad Khatami, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani and his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi on matters of mutual interest.

On 21 October, Iran accepted a proposal from foreign affairs minister of Britain, France and Germany to sign the Additional Protocol to the Non Proliferation Treaty and suspend its uranium enriching programmes, activities it had concealed from the Vienna-based IAEA for 18 years.

A report by the Agency’s inspectors on Iranian atomic projects is at the heart of a new row between the United States that accuses the Islamic Republic for efforts to access the nuclear arms with the European Union.

"Mutual relations, bolstering economic cooperation and the latest international developments, specially the Middle East issues were among the main subjects to be discussed", IRNA reported.

But Mr. Ra’fat said besides the atomic issues, subjects of human rights, the imprisonment of dissidents journalists, intellectuals, lawyers and scholars, the closure of a hundred of publications and the situation of women were also to be discussed, "subjects that are not to the liking of the ruling Iranians", he noted. ENDS ITALY IRAN 231103